The fatal shooting of Renee Good by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer Jonathan Ross has rekindled a debate about the use of force in law enforcement. Or perhaps debate is too strong a word—rather, the incident has again polarized the nation, confirming us in our existing beliefs.
The Babylon Bee put it best: “Video of the incident has definitively proven whatever you already wanted to believe about the incident.”
Even though we see what we want to see in that video, it is worth pushing back on one notion that has emerged: that Ross was justified in his decision to use lethal force against Good because of an incident last year where he was dragged by a vehicle.
That incident occurred in Bloomington, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. According to court records, Ross and other ICE agents had pulled over a man named Roberto Carlos Muñoz, who had been convicted of sexual abuse in Minnesota. Muñoz refused to lower the driver’s side window when Ross asked him to, and Ross then unholstered his Taser and broke the window in an attempt to unlock the door. Muñoz accelerated, dragging Ross for nearly 100 yards. Ross later needed 33 stitches between his forearm and hand, and Muñoz was eventually arrested and convicted in December of assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous or deadly weapon, resulting in injury.
